The Gate
by Ayehli
Summary: Lily's life with Jack and her daughter seems idyllic...but she has become someone else.


I

Lily's first sense to awaken was smell. She smelled periwinkles, and lavender, crushed leaves and a hint of coming rain in the slight breeze that touched her nostrils. Then her skin awakened, feeling the softness of her dress, the scratch of the leaves, a lock of her own hair tickling the nape of her neck.

And the kiss. She felt lips on hers, and her mouth awakened to sense the familiar taste of Jack, the mix of berries, leaves and human that was his kiss.

And her eyes opened, and she smiled at him.

"I had such dreams!"

He smiled down at her, his face gleaming in the afternoon sun. "Yes, only dreams, my love."

Her face darkened for a moment. "Such terrible things happened…"

He pulled her gently into his arms. "Only dreams, my love. They cannot touch you now."

She let herself be held, and caressed, let his words soothe her, even as the faint visions coalesced, becoming all too clear in her mind. Visions of fire…of herself in black, a self she barely recognized…of a touch that seared, and eyes that saw everything…

She shook her head, as if that would somehow clear the images from her mind. And it did, momentarily. Jack held her tighter, and she held him back.

"Only dreams, my love…only dreams…"

II

She no longer missed the comforts she had once been accustomed to. Her forest home was warm in the winter and cool enough in the summer, and if its bedsheets were cotton instead of silk, its furnishings rough wood instead of polished, and its kitchen full of simple fruits and vegetables instead of the rich meats and cheeses she had once supped on, she no longer noticed. The trees surrounding her four walls were bathed in light, and she could see the rising sun every morning if she awoke early, which she made a point to do, sitting upright next to Jack's slumbering figure and watching as tiny fingers of orange and gold crept over the valley. Reminded that such light was almost lost, because of her. And that it had been regained, in a way, because of her.

Jack was dear, and devoted, and in many ways he had become like a second child to her, one to be held and protected, one from whom certain harsh truths must be concealed. He was a man—he had proven himself in his rescue of her, but she could not help thinking of him as she always had, as a playful boy, cuddled and kissed and teased by her formerly girlish self. It frightened her, how quickly that girlish self had vanished. She searched for it in mirrors, and in his eyes, but it was gone, and in its place was something harder and more alien, even to herself.

One night, lying next to Jack, she had felt a heat rising beneath her skin and had turned to run her hands over his sleeping figure. In his sleep he had responded, holding and touching her gently (always so gently!), hands slipping beneath her nightdress even as his eyes remained closed. But then her own hands had grown more insistent, and with nails suddenly sharp she was scratching him, biting his neck, and as low, animal growls rumbled in her throat she saw droplets of blood on his chest. And then Daisy, asleep in her crib nearby, had begun to shriek.

He had awakened and stared at her, at the blood, at the feral expression that she was surely wearing. She had never forgotten that expression, the eyes that gazed at her in fear and alarm, staring at the creature in his bed who no longer remotely resembled his wife.

It was forgotten in the morning, of course. Moments such as those always were, and she no longer knew if it was witchcraft or Jack's desire not to see that which frightened and confused him. In the morning she became Daisy's mother and Jack's darling girl again, the babe at her breast, gazing at her husband with what she hoped was a convincing look of fondness. And he gazed back, with what she always hoped was a genuine look of trust, but knew could not be.

III

"I want to kill the unicorn."

His face betrayed shock, then broke into a smile, grander and more joyful than any she had seen. She kept her own face a perfect mask, her smile coquettish, knowing how much depended on this moment.

He threw back his head and laughed a loud, roaring laugh, and she felt her body relax. He believed her. She had turned the game to her advantage, and she would right her wrongs before the night was through.

He stared down at her, and there was something in his gaze that almost resembled benevolence. "Sweet lady, you amaze me."

She rose slowly to her feet, moving catlike around the large table. "I believe I was clear that I do nothing for your pleasure." The fury had gone out of her voice this time. Her words teased, and her eyes held his, unafraid.

"Indeed." He followed her around the table, letting her keep just enough distance. "You are not my creature to command…particularly when you presume to fool me."

Her heart sank, though her face betrayed no disappointment. "Fool you, my lord?" She giggled. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

His eyes pierced hers for no longer than a heartbeat, and she felt herself grow rigid. Her mouth opened, and as she watched in horror a fine, dark mist emerged, trailing from her lips like a hissing snake. Wrapped within the mist she heard—and saw, though she couldn't be sure—the words that had raced through her brain only moments before.

_Get close enough to free it…he will not know…smile…he has beaten you, let him think he has beaten you…get close enough and hold the knife in your hand… _

She gasped as the mist-thoughts were swept into his outstretched palm, and she felt a pain in her head, almost like a hand pressing against her skull, as he crushed them between his fingers.

He moved toward her and she could not move away, her body rooted to the spot where his strength had frozen her. His taloned hand ran down the side of her cheek and trailed through her hair.

"Your attempts at deception are amusing, my lady…but you are an amateur."

Her body felt locked in a vise-grip, her breath short and ragged. Invisible hands seemed to be squeezing her lungs. She stared at him and begged with her eyes, watching his face blur before her…

…and the grip was lifted, and she took long, shuddering breaths as she felt her body able to move again, and ran to the other end of the table, keeping her mind a blank.

"We waste time, lady. I will let you kill the unicorn, if you wish. Plot what you will, the outcome of the night will not change."

She glared, dark eyes flashing across the table. "You underestimate your foes."

"On the contrary. My foes underestimate the power of fate. Even if light is not forever extinguished, even if your boy lover through some twist of luck vanquishes me, in the end I will be victorious."

Lily stared at him. "How?"

He smiled, plucking a grape from one of the large platters in the center of the table. "Because one day you will come to me willingly."

"Never!"

"Never, never…how you cling to this word! My world is one of infinite possibilities, lady. There is no such thing as 'never.'"

"You will never possess my soul…you could enchant me to bend to your will, but I would never bend willingly!"

He stood and moved slowly toward her. "I have seen it already. In visions that came to me in my flames."

She stood rooted to the floor. "Visions?"

"Yes." His eyes seemed to wander. "I cannot know the day, or even the year, but I have seen you coming through my gates, leaving behind the mortal world, seeking that which you cannot have elsewhere. Your face is weary, and melancholy, but coming near to me awakens warmth in a soul grown cold. And the doors close behind you, and you know that you cannot leave, but you do not ask to."

It happened so quickly. One moment she was standing still, and the next moment she had crossed the distance between them and was screaming at him, tiny hands attacking his face and chest.

"You lie! You are the father of lies, you know only deceit—I love Jack, and only Jack, and I will never come to you willingly! Never!"

He made no attempt to fight back. None was necessary. He let her hit and scream until she was exhausted, and then he turned to leave the room.

IV

She wondered if Jack did not see what was inside her, or if he saw it, and chose not to speak.

She did not get with child again, not after Daisy, despite the many nights they lay together. She did not seek to know why, and Jack did not seem melancholy. Daisy was enough for him.

They made her happy in a way, those nights. Jack was eager as a child, and he doted upon her, working so hard to please, and if some nights she seemed not quite herself, wilder and more insistent than she knew was normal, he did not complain.

But some nights she was elsewhere. As she lay beneath him, arms entangled with legs, his breath moving in rhythm with hers, she would imagine his grip tightening…imagine feeling crushed, and hearing not breath but the sound of an animal growl…of feeling kisses from lips that burned and froze her flesh beneath them…

And then she would come back, as if nothing had happened. But she stayed away longer and longer.

The fairy folk suspected, she knew. They treated her deferentially, but there was fear in their eyes. Gump would not speak to her unless forced to. She could feel them whispering all around her.

Her daughter, too, seemed to sense something strange in her mother. Lily often stared long and hard at Daisy, looking for some resemblance of Jack and finding little, seeing only herself…and a darkness to her daughter's eyes that frightened her.

But there was the forest, and her warm home, and there was Jack, and in the daylight hours she could almost forget the strangeness that came upon her at night. She dreamed of a world in which the sun never set…which made her laugh, thinking how hard they had all striven to save the world from a sun that never rose. A world of eternal light, where she and Jack would always be young, and untouched by what she had seen and done in those days.

V

Sweat beaded on Lily's forehead as she clutched the sword in both hands. The air was so thick with noise she could barely hear her own thoughts. The faithful chanted, the mare screamed again and again, her chains grating against the stone as they pulled her head within striking distance of Lily's hands.

_You will come to me willingly._

She forced herself to think of Jack, to think of the face that she knew she would always love, to think of the future, of children, of a contented and uneventful life free of the kind of chaos that the last few dawns had brought into her life. She held his face in her mind and wrapped love around it like a thick blanket.

And then she stole a glance at Darkness, etching his face in her memory as well, one that would soon be gone, never to trouble her again. She wrapped his face in disgust and hate.

Or tried to.

The idea wouldn't take hold. His face remained, and the disgust remained, but his face seemed to merge on top of Jack's until the other's was blurred and indistinct, and try as she might it was Darkness's face that held clearest in her mind's eye, his own eyes piercing her.

He met her eyes then, in real time, and it was as if he saw everything. He smiled. Almost pityingly.

_I have seen you coming through my gates… _

"Let my offering be made of flesh and blood."

…_coming near to me awakens warmth in a soul grown cold…_

"I am sister to the Fates, and I do their bidding."

…_you know that you cannot leave…_

"Let the dawn cease, and a new world be born."

…_but you do not ask to._

She raised the sword, her small arms shaking with the weight. As it came down and the chain shattered she saw an arrow fly to hit Darkness in the chest, felt the sharp blow of his hand across her face, and as she lost consciousness saw again the dual image of his face and Jack's, one blurring into the other, until finally Jack's was gone, and only Darkness's glowing eyes lingered in her vision as she slipped into the void of sleep.

VI

Daisy grew up among the trees, her father's child through and through, stealing away with him during the day and learning the language of the birds and the leaves, dancing and singing in the glen with the fairy folk. Lily had never been told she was not welcome, but her heart was no longer as light as it had once been, and her daughter's delights were a mystery to her. Jack, too, had grown more silent, though he continued to dote on her. On the days when she would not rise from her bed he would bring her steaming cups of broth, and when it seemed nothing could make her smile he would play music for her on his flute, and she would momentarily feel young again.

The strange nights came more and more frequently. Nights where she seemed to leave her own body and then woke to find herself clawing and scratching at the bedclothes. When she became aware of what she was doing she would hold it in, like a weak dam holding back a torrent. Night after night of holding back what was within her was draining her of strength.

Years passed, and Daisy grew tall and nimble, scampering over tree trunks and river stones in clothes spun of leaves and fairy gossamer like Jack had once worn. She spoke little, but her eyes betrayed a wisdom that frightened Lily. In the same way that Daisy's crying had once shaken her from her animal self, she often wondered if her daughter could see straight into her mother's heart. Into her dreams, and the darkness that lurked there.

He finally came to her as she slept. Her dream was dark, and her bare feet seemed to touch stone, but she felt his presence before she saw him, and his voice was a cool wind against her neck.

…_the hour is near…_

She said nothing. Where years ago she might have raged against him, now she wanted only to wait. Wait for something to happen, in a world where nothing seemed to have happened for years.

…_you remember…_

Images, unbidden, flooded her mind…of herself, younger and wilder, dancing around the table to keep out of reach of Darkness's tall, horned form…of herself writhing in bed next to Jack…and suddenly, of Daisy…

She gasped. "Daisy?"

…_she knows who you are, even if you do not know yourself…_

Lily's fists clenched. "Leave my daughter alone."

She felt him laugh. _…fierce…I have missed your fire…though these few years are nothing to me…_

Something brushed her hair and she turned quickly, only to see a thin, grey smoke coalescing in the air before her…it wrapped itself, snake-like, around her neck, circling her breasts, trailing along her arms…

…_so fierce, but so soft…_

…tendrils of smoke threaded through her fingers, down over her legs, slipped within, through and around her…

…_I must feel all of you at once…_

She screamed and woke up to find Jack shaking her, his face pale with fear. The words tumbled from her lips again and again.

"Leave my daughter alone! Leave my daughter alone!"

And she heard his last whisper as the dream faded.

…_but she is not yours alone…_

VII

She awoke to find the door to the cottage bolted from the outside, the windows shut and locked tight. There was no sign of Jack, or her daughter.

She pushed against the door, banged on it with her small fists. "Jack! Jack, where are you?"

The voice that answered her was small, and laced with the strange accent of the fairy-folk. Gump. "Jack is not here, my lady."

"What has happened? Why am I locked up?"

"Green Jack would protect you, my lady. He fears you may do harm to yourself if you leave the cottage."

"Harm? To myself? This is nonsense! Let me out of here!"

There was a long silence, in which she tried to imagine Gump on the other side of the door. She thought she could hear him breathing.

When he finally spoke, his voice was sad. "He should never have brought you here."

She felt her heart freeze. "What?"

"You do not belong here. You should have stayed. With him."

Lily's body felt heavy, and she sat down on the small cottage bed. Her voice was barely a whisper, but she knew Gump could hear it.

"I love Jack."

"Yes, I believe you do."

"I do."

"Then what would you do for him?"

There was another long silence, and then the sound of rustling leaves. Gump had gone. Lily sat alone in the cottage, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees, feeling again the smoke that curled around and into her body, and clenching her fists in a futile attempt to push the memory away.

She slept briefly, and when she woke again the light coming through the cracks in the windows was a redder color, and Daisy was standing in the open doorway.

Lily sat up quickly, alarmed by the distant, alien look on her daughter's face. "Daisy? What's happened? Where is your father?"

Daisy's only reply was to reach out a small hand toward her mother. Feeling like a child herself, Lily took it.

They walked through the forest in bare feet, Daisy leading Lily unhesitating through the path where she had often played with Jack, and then beyond it, through parts of the forest she had never seen before, where the trees grew thickly overhead and the light penetrating the leaves was reduced to a tiny glimmer. Before long the sun had set, and there was no light at all, but Daisy did not stumble.

They walked for what seemed like hours, perhaps even days. Lily's feet ached, and her dress was torn by branches. Daisy pulled her onward as resolutely as a mule pulling a cart.

Finally Lily spoke. "Daisy, where are you taking me?"

Daisy spoke without turning to look at her mother. "To my other father."

Lily stopped, and Daisy almost stumbled, her hand clutched in her mother's. "Your _what?_"

Daisy turned to look at her slowly, and the expression on her face was one of a much older child. "My other father. The one you dream of."

Lily knelt down to her daughter's level, feeling tears sting her eyes. "How do you know about him?"

"He came to me. In my dream."

Lily felt herself choke, and it was all she could do not to shriek her words. "No…"

"He didn't hurt me." Daisy's voice was calm, reassuring. "I was scared, at first. But he told me that you were ill, and that I could help you."

Lily collapsed onto the darkened forest floor and began to shake, tears flowing freely. "No. No one can help me."

"He said you were ill because you fight with what's inside. He said you can stop fighting now."

She shook her head. "I won't leave you. Or Jack."

"He said you would say that."

Lily stared at her daughter, terrified at the calmness in Daisy's voice, but also strangely soothed. "Why did you call him your other father?"

"Because he said he was. Not really. I came from Papa, he said. But part of me is his."

Lily reached out and gripped Daisy fiercely by the shoulders, and then pulled her tight against her chest. "I won't give you to him."

"He doesn't want me. I'm not like him."

Lily felt as if cold hands were stroking her heart. Her voice was barely a whisper as she spoke into her daughter's hair. "Is it you? Do you speak through her?"

"Only a little."

It took all of her strength not to push her daughter away. Only the knowledge that it _was_ Daisy, even a tainted Daisy, kept her arms around her, one hand gently stroking her hair.

"We have to keep going."

Becoming a child again, Lily let herself be led. The dark forest gave way to something between forest and stone, where one moment she seemed to be walking in water, the next on air, and the next on sand. The sky above was filled with stars, and then there was no sky, and then she felt submerged in water.

Finally they came to a huge, black face of stone, its image shifting and flickering in the air before them. In the middle was a door, one that she knew all too well from the dreams, though it had never been floating in space.

Lily moved forward and felt Daisy's hand drop from hers. She turned to see her daughter backing away, smiling at her.

"He'll make me forget, mother. And Papa, he'll forget too."

"Daisy…" She started to follow.

Daisy put both hands in front of her, her face suddenly stern. "It's better if you don't." She smiled again. "He can make you forget too, if you want."

Lily nodded. "Tell your father I love him. Before he forgets."

"I will."

Daisy turned, and within seconds had vanished into the shifting shapes and darkness that surrounded them.

VIII

"Sing for me."

Lily tossed a handful of cottonwood at Jack, and he blew it back in her face.

"Sing for me."

Her voice was teasing. "I am a princess, I sing for no one!"

He lay his head in her lap, and as she stared at him she thought that there could not possibly be anything more a young girl could wish for, than to have a beautiful man's face staring up at her, begging her for some service. "Sing for me, and I will do whatever you wish."

She smiled at him. "Whatever I wish?"

He reached up to stroke her cheek. "Whatever you wish."

"And if I wished to stay here, forever, with you?"

He sat up, his face serious, looking at her silently for a long moment. "I will make it so."

She laughed and pulled him into her arms, showering him with kisses, and sang to him as they lay under the trees. When she finished, she looked at him as sternly as she was able.

"Remember your promise."

He smiled at her. "We will remain here, forever. There is no other world but this place, and us."

"No other world."

"No other world."

She kissed him again, and he kissed back, more insistently, and she gave in to the dream.

VIV

Lily stood in front of the black gate as she had done in a hundred dreams, unable to move forward, unable to move back. After what seemed an eternity, it opened for her.

She stepped inside, into a room where huge fireplaces lined the walls, where a table was laid with food and drink, and where Darkness sat waiting, one hand reached out toward her.

"My lady."

Her feet moved of their own accord, and she stepped into the room, across smooth stones that brought her within reach of his hand, though just far enough away from it. She looked into the huge mirror and saw herself in black again, the years seemingly gone from her face.

He stood behind her, and their eyes met in the mirror. When she spoke, her voice was calm.

"Make me forget."

He chuckled. "As my lady commands."

Part of her clutched at images of Jack and Daisy even as they faded so quickly from her mind, but soon there was nothing to clutch. She felt herself smile, felt Darkness's hand trace a line down the curve of her arm, his flesh warm against hers.

She turned to face him, her fingers touching what she could reach, unashamed. She heard the sound of the doors closing behind her, and she smiled.

He smiled back, raising her hand to his mouth and giving it a long, slow kiss. "Welcome home."


End file.
